Week 16 & 17- Dinner?

After returning from my quest into Mordor I was left with a shortened week and I had exams looming. Up until this point, I have spent most of my time here going on adventures and altogether having a great time but there came a point where I had to sit down and prepare for my exams. Much of the past two weeks was thus spent thinking about studying, planning to study, not studying and a small bit of actually studying. Consequently, I have lumped two weeks together in this blog. I had two opportunities to play some frisbee, on Wednesday the 1st we had a spring league game and on Saturday the 4th we had training, to keep myself sane. While I was circumnavigating Mount Doom, Harry was on his own adventure in the South Island where he spent a week climbing the snow-covered Mount Cook. I was able to catch up with him on Thursday and exchange stories before breaking bread with Charlotte on Sunday.

A week into studying, Harry sent me a message ‘Want to go for an adventure this afternoon?’. This was the perfect out. I spent a few minutes convincing myself I could let myself go before agreeing and that afternoon we set off for the west coast. The region is called Waitakere which is where I went for my very first hike in New Zealand way back in July. We were headed to a beach called Mercer Bay which is one beach down from the relatively famous Piha Beach (due to its black sand and wild seas). The region is technically still in Auckland but when we set off Google Maps said we were 56 minutes away. Harry was pretty confident of the route but after driving 15min I decided to check the map to see that we were now a little south of Auckland and 50min away. Whoops. Eventually we successfully made it to Piha where we collected one of Harry’s very good friends from Scotland, Mairi, and her friend, Grace.

We walked along the headland with stunning views of the length of the coastline before Harry announced we had reached the point and began our steep descent down a face that didn’t scream ‘Climb me’. There were some ropes that had been put in place to help and a semi path most of the way down to make it a little easier but the risk all added to the thrill. Mercer Bay is a tidal Bay so we arrived at six, ready for low tide at seven so we could explore some tidal caves. Once on the level we ran along the gorgeous, untouched, black sand beach and in and out of the water. While we waited for low tide we explored some rock pools and spotted a few mischievous crabs before we donned our head torches ready to explore. Just before we headed into the caves a local man arrived who said he was going to be going out to a sea stack and climb on because the tide was particularly low today. He said that he had been coming to the beach for 25 years and only been on the sea stack 5 times.

We ventured into the caves, able to walk around to begin with, before we resorted to crawling on our hands and knees. It was incredibly dark, so dark that when we turned the torches off it wasn’t possible to see even the outline of your hand when it was right in front of your face. We sat for a few minutes, experiencing how our body heat was warming the cave before we headed on and out the other side. We were now on a small section of sand between rock faces which gave us access to a couple of large caves. In one we found a fish that we originally thought was dead but later decided it just thought it was so well camouflaged that it couldn’t be seen. In another, the roof of the cave had collapsed at one point and we could see the sky above with the light also filtering in from the entrance. With the tide being so low we ran out around the headland rather than going through the cave again and then climbed up onto the sea stack that our friend from earlier had told us about. As the sun was setting we made our way back along the beach and up the cliff face to return to Auckland.

Charlotte and I treated ourselves to ice creams before my first exam on Thursday morning. Being used to a massive exam hall in UCD, sitting a final in a lecture theatre seemed a little odd. For the most part, everything is the same as at home except watches are not allowed, you only find out the venue for the exam the night before and you aren’t allowed to leave for the first hour and 45 minutes of a three-hour exam. Suitably pleased with how the exam went, I went to have dinner with Jack and Clare. During dinner, we rang Sam at home to sing him happy birthday before Mark came home and we played ‘Bananagrams’ which is a faster more creative version of scrabble. I spent much of Friday cramming but I did have time for a longer video call with Sam before dinner with the usual suspects.

Having brought us so many miles during the semester, it was time for the wagon to have an oil top up. Harry managed to get some oil from one of the other flats but as I was passing I asked him if he had checked the oil and if he had the right oil for the car seeing as it is a 1995 automatic. He said he hadn’t actually dipped the oil and would check the manual for the right grade of oil. When I returned from my middle-of-the-day-on-a-Saturday exam I had a couple of messages from Harry. ‘I found the dipstick and it basically came out dry. However, couldn't spot an obvious place to put oil in...’ and then about 20 minutes later ‘Don’t worry I found it’. At least he knows for next time. That was not the only surprise, however. I stuck my head round the door of his apartment to see that he had almost no hair left apart from a three-inch silver braid coming from the top of his head. Apparently when he had asked our friend Nicolas to ‘take it all off’ he had taken Harry literally!

That evening we went out to wish Ulysse well (and spend his bar tab) as he was leaving for the summer the next day and wanted to have a small party. I woke early on Sunday morning to watch Ireland vs South Africa in the rugby and Ireland vs Denmark in the soccer. The soccer result prompted a bet with Mathias (who is from Denmark) for the second leg which I will reveal later. After another day of study, I went up Mount Eden once again with Charlotte, Mathias, Bobby, Marlene and Eemilie to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous but also seemed to represent the ending of the semester and that we would soon be parting ways.

You can see all the photos from Mercer Bay here and all the photos from Mount Eden here.